Storms of Pain
Based on a true story of Ron and Kate Henry
Ron Henry walked slowly from the ranch house to the barn. He carried a pistol in his right hand, his gait listing to the left, hips tilting from years of rodeoing, the pearl-snaps of his shirt straining at the extra weight he now carried in his belly. Big drops of rain began to fall kicking up plumes of dust in front of him. His wife, Kate, of 52 years took her last breath moments before in the bed set up in the living room of their ranch house, surrounded with framed photos of their kids and grandkids. He sat with her for thirty minutes, his head bowed, his hand in hers, tears dropping from his cheeks like the raindrops that will fall outside on his walk to the barn.
She wanted to die at home, the 160 acre horse and cattle ranch in Paradise Valley, Nevada forty miles north of Winnemucca where they lived and raised their family and where they rode the ups and downs of ranch life together for over fifty years. The last Sunday of every month they would drive to Winnemucca after church for a communal brunch at the Basque Restaurant. Although they were of Norwegian ancestry, they appreciated the joyous abundance of the Basque people, sheepherders from the Pyrenees in Northern Spain that emigrated to the Great Basin of the American West seeking opportunity. They would often see old friends from high school there at the family-style meals and would allow themselves one drink—a Picon Punch, a tradional Basque drink made with grenadine, club soda, brandy, and Amer Picon, a bitter orange liquor.
Kate planted a garden outback growing root vegetables and green leafy vegetables that would compliment the abundant beef stored in the freezer. Along the picket fence at the front of the house she planted flower beds, coaxing colors and species from the dessert soil her neighbors thought not possible. Once her cancer spread to her bones the pain was too great to manage her garden and flowers, and too great for Ron to bare.
When he let go of her hand his movements became resolute; a solid stride toward his office near the front door, a quick turn of a small key to open the middle-left drawer of his desk, a sealed envelope removed which he laid on top of the desk, and then with the slightest pause, a reach into the drawer again to retrieve his Long Colt 45 pistol. He used to wear it on his hip on long rides and had to use it once when the horse he was riding was spooked by lightning in a sudden summer storm, broke it's leg bolting across a creek and stepping in a hole buried by a thicket of brush. With it's wild eyes straining as it tried to get up, Ron placed the revolver just below it's right ear and pulled the trigger. Ribbons of red liquid unspooled from the wound and spilled on his cowboy boots.
Ron recalled this moment on his walk to the barn. He thought how quiet it was after the gunshot and how at peace the horse was. He opened the door of the stall where he used to keep his favorite horse, Buck, that he retired to pasture and found laying on the ground early one morning. It was a soft death, an easy exit from old age. Kate’s death was helped by morphine the home-health nurse would inject on her visits during the week. The nurse taught Ron to inject the morphine for the storms of pain she would experience at night and on the weekend. He was conflicted to dose her: it would send her into a painless sleep somewhere between life and death but away from him. He would sit by her reflecting on memories of their lives together, but always outpaced and overwhelmed by thoughts of his future without her. When Buck and Kate died they both closed their eyes and they were gone. It was the opposite of violent, the fate that Ron would experience as soon as he blanketed Buck's old stall with sawdust to make for an easy clean up.
He placed his gun on the corner ledge in the stall where he used to put alfalfa biscuits for Buck after letting him nuzzle a palm-full of his favorite treat from his hand. Ron had spent his life around horses and still felt a warming in his chest when a horse would eat out of his hand, it's velvet mouth nimbly cleaning up every crumb. He reached in his shirt pocket and took out an old sepia tinted photo, three inches by four inches, bent on one corner. There was a young couple in the photo, smiling ear to ear, the young man holding up the buckle he had just won as the Best Overall Cowboy, the pretty young woman with a sash across her chest with Rodeo Queen written in a cursive font. He turned it over and written with a pencil on the back that was now smudged and fading it said:
Me and my chick. Rodeo King and Queen, Winnemucca, Nevada. July 4th, 1944.
Kate had months to contemplate her death by disease, a slow row across water to another place far away from Ron and those she loved. Ron could be obstinate and angry at things he couldn't control, like a lightning strike, electrifying any situation. It felt to him like sitting bareback on an enraged rodeo horse, belt synched tightly where no belt should go, twelve-hundred pounds of raw energy rearing from the chute to throw Ron from it's back.
He placed the photo back in his shirt pocket and with his eyes growing wild, grabbed the pistol and placed it just above his right ear and pulled the trigger.
I love it, a life well lived!